Prayers to the Shinto Gods, even at the present day, are mostly for material blessings. Anything more which they contain may be confidently set down to Buddhist influence. There are prayers on reclaiming a new piece of ground, building a house, sowing a rice-field, prayers for prosperity in trade and domestic happiness, prayers promising to give up _sake_, gambling, or profligacy (Buddhist), thanks for escape from shipwreck or other danger, &c. Sometimes the prayer is written out on paper and deposited in the shrine, perhaps accompanied by the petitioner's hair or a picture having some reference to the subject of his prayer. When it is answered, small paper _nobori_ (flags) are set up at the shrine or its approaches. A common prayer at the present day is for "Peace to the country, safety to the family, and plentiful crops." =Oaths and Curses=.--The _Nihongi_ mentions several cases of Heaven or the Gods being appealed to for the sanction of an oath. Thus in 562 an accused person declares: "This is false and not true. If this is true, let calamity from Heaven befall me." In 581 tribes of Yemishi promised submission to the Mikado, saying: "If we break this oath, may all the Gods of Heaven and Earth and also the spirits of the Emperors destroy our race." In 644 the Mikado made an oath appealing to the Gods of Heaven and Earth, and saying: "On those who break this oath Heaven will send a curse and Earth a plague, demons will slay them, and men will smite them." The author of the _Nihongi_, however, is grievously open to the suspicion of adorning his narrative liberally with rhetorical ornaments of Chinese origin. The following is an example of a nonreligious oath said to have been made by a Korean king in 249: "If I spread grass for us to sit on, it might be burnt with fire; if I took wood for a seat, it might be washed away by water. Therefore, sitting on a rock, I make this solemn declaration of alliance." A curse pronounced over a well in 456 has likewise no religious quality. It is simply "This water may be drunk by the people only: royal persons alone may not drink of it." The instructions of the Sea-God to Hohodemi, "When thou givest this fishhook back to thy brother, say, 'A hook of poverty, a hook of ruin, a hook of downfall,'" are a kind of curse. On the whole, oaths and curses of a religious character are rare in Japanese literature. Profanity is almost unknown. A mild appeal to the "three holy things" (of Buddhism) or to the Sun, or a wish that divine punishment (_bachi_) may strike one's enemy, are almost the only things of the kind. And they are infrequent. Probably this is due to the want of a deep-seated sentiment of piety in the Japanese nation. Such expressions as "Thank God," "Good-bye," "Adieu," "God forbid," are also rare, whether in speech or in literature. The Mohammedans, with their continual use of the name of Allah, are the antipodes of the Japanese in this respect.